This post is from my Substack

“I want to become an expert in what was shattered.”

That quote above – and I didn’t quote the whole sentence — is from Jeffrey Rubin’s new book, Psychotherapy Case Studies: Escaping the Prison You Didn’t Know You Were In. I started reading it on the subway yesterday, and yes it is a fine fine subway read. But this morning, as I returned to the book, I thought of astrology, Pluto (Pluto transits) in particular.

For anyone who doesn’t know, transits are where the planets are now and the influence they, supposedly, have over us. This is a subject of much debate in astrology-world. Do the stars impel? Compel? It depends on who you ask and such debates aren’t my purpose here. My purpose here is that this phrase “I WANT TO BECOME AN EXPERT IN WHAT WAS SHATTERED” is exactly what Pluto demands of us because Pluto will shatter us, and then we must not only begin to understand but become expert. (And yes one could say this about any of the outer planet transits, but Pluto was the one I thought of this morning. I also realize that unless you are already “into” astrology, none of this may make sense, but let’s continue.)

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I want to become an expert in what was shattered. Have you ever said this? Thought it? Imagined it? What choice do you have if everything has, indeed, shattered? This is what the hard transits ask of us, and what are hard transits but just another way to say ‘life itself’ and, yes, difficult times often come in bulk. It all happens at once. Waves crash on the shore of your life.

So Pluto has just started its long transit to my 6th house. Pluto has just started its long transit somewhere in your chart. Maybe it’s your 6th and maybe not. One thing the 6th House is about is the body and the routines of the body and the health of the body, and the little things of the body, the adjustments, the needs, the work of the body. Body body body body. There shall be no escaping the body for me for the next, oh, twenty years or so. Not really what I was interested in but Pluto doesn’t care!

Now if Pluto is transiting your 6th House it may not be the body that is shining through but… animals/pets or work or SERVICE. What does service mean to you? And most likely Pluto will touch various aspects of your daily life. It won’t just be the body. It won’t just be what you do each day. It won’t only be how you intend to GIVE.

Pluto comes to set a fire to some area(s) of your life and to watch it burn and lucky for us Pluto does leave instructions. Fires of transformation, yes. There is a face in the fire. The old you, right? And with Pluto in Aquarius (ruling THE GROUP), you know you will experience these transformations in groups, in community.

So the other day I had cause to talk to a Wise Woman. I wrote about this on my astrology blog. And we weren’t planning on talking about yoga of all things (it was not on my mind at all) but the subject of yoga came up and the next day I went to a Zoom yoga class and for the first time in YEARS (how long I’m not sure) I felt IN my body, connected to my body, instead of… a pair of eyes floating in some kind of… boundary-less, amorphous shape. I didn’t realize that I had no FORM. I was a goo of emotion, affect, fear, mind-chatter. I walk five, six, seven, miles daily, and I think all this walking took me *out* of my body instead of placing me in it. I had no tether. I was floating. Two eyes in the goo of affect. But I didn’t know.

So I took this one Zoom 75-minute class and something shifted in me, and I thought to myself that day: AHA! I see you Pluto! This is Pluto newly in my 6th House. This is Pluto saying: this is the way. This is Pluto leaving breadcrumbs. Every transit is a message.

Become an expert in what was shattered. This is you not responding to the transit but wearing it, becoming it. And this seems like a good place to stop for now.

To be continued xo